A picture displayed above the stage showed a typical teenage video gamer wearing a bulky headset and pumping his fist. Without much explanation, Intel said it had created a monster 28 core CPU that could run all of those internal processing units at a speed of 5 GHz.
Most multi-core chips must slow their clock speed to much slower rates when they use many cores at the same time to avoid overheating. And Intel also name-checked Asus and Gigabyte as making compatible hardware, two popular suppliers for video gaming PCs. Intel then ran one of the most strenuous software benchmarks, called Cinebench, which measures performance for 3D scene rendering. It showed a phenomenal result about double that of the fastest consumer desktop PC chips.
All of that led many in the audience, including many journalists, to conclude that the new super chip would be for the millions of customers who play high-end video games or do a lot of video editing or 3D rendering. PC Worldcompared the chip to AMD’s Threadripper line, as did The Verge and ExtremeTech. When, as rumored, AMD (amd, +2.38%) introduced its second generation Threadripper, now with 32 cores, a few hours later nearly every publication also mentioned Intel’s upcoming 28 core model as well.
The problem is that the two chips aren’t remotely comparable. The new Threadripper chip fits in the same socket as current AMD consumer chips and is expected to cost around $1,000. That puts it at the high end of the consumer PC gaming market.
By contrast, when a few tech news sites got to go behind the scenes of Intel’s demo later, they discovered that the mysterious 28-core chip only fit in a PC with a high-end socket called LGA 3647 that is reserved for server computers and very high-end workstations. That meant it was likely a variant of Intel’s Xeon Scalable line for corporations that costs up to $10,000, or five times what its most expensive consumer and “prosumer” chips cost.
It also turned out, as Intel discreetly admitted later, that the 5 GHz clock speed for all the cores on the new chip was only achievable because the computer was connected to a hidden 68-pound water chiller meant for large home aquariums to keeps its temperature down. Intel said the presenter accidentally forgot to mention that the system was boosted above its normal speed, or overclocked. Intel wouldn’t say what speed the new chip will run out of the box, or under overclocking using more typical cooling set ups.
In a statement, Intel (intc, -1.50%) emphasized that the new chip was not a phony demo, but a real product, and that it cited a commercial benchmark, Cinebench, not a video gaming test. “The 28C demo at the keynote is a real product in development targeted at the high end prosumer and enthusiast audience,” Intel said. “Intel continues to optimize design and process across its products and the demo showcased an upcoming Intel product having the capability of 5.0 GHz overclocking across all 28 cores.”
